It will always be a mystery to me how people can have something as detestable as being against equal rights on their conscience and consider themselves decent human beings. If I’d grown up in the times of segregation that would still be something I’d never understand. Call me sheltered, but I was genuinely shocked when I recently heard this anti gay marriage “argument”: “What’s next, the family dog?” Genuine stupidity never fails to shock me, so this statement was doubly shocking because it was coupled with bigotry that was just as genuine. Living in San Francisco for the past three years has spoiled me when it comes to clear thinking about discrimination, especially since I’ve been involved in COLAGE, a grassroots activist group for people with one or more LGBT parent.

In a word, having a gay dad is fabulous. Many daughters learned to dance standing on their father’s feet; I learned to do the Macarena before it became a big hit. My father used to take me to gem shows with an equal enthusiasm for sparkly things. Dad, his partner Pete and I bond while watching What Not To Wear and making fun of how terribly some people dress. I’ve raided their 90’s dance music collection. And when I was much younger I sang Jasmine’s part to A Whole New World while my dad played it on the piano and sang Aladdin’s part.

Although they do not allow themselves to be constrained by the social masculine norms, gay men are still men at heart. For my family that meant few and far between mushy discussions about feelings, sports fanaticism, and toilet seats constantly being left up. In addition to doing some non-traditional father-daughter activities, I didn’t miss out on the traditional ones either. We played backyard baseball, which consisted of my dad pitching, me hitting, and our border collie Tux chasing and bringing back the ball while his son Buster herded him. We also went to hockey games because I refused to accompany him to any other sporting event he had tickets to. For my birthday one year, my dad and Pete built an agility fan jump so I could train our dogs. And it was my dad who taught me to slalom water ski and insisted I go to ski school in Greenville, Texas so I could learn to do the buoy course and wakeboard.

However, unlike some of my fellow queerspawn, I have the added bonus of maintaining a healthy relationship with my biological mother since I came to be through a divorce. In fact, a lot of my upbringing involved living with my single mom, which is also frowned on in some parts of society. There was a time when I thought no child should be without a mom and a dad. But there was also a time when I thought there might be monsters under my bed.

Today is the third annual Blogging For LGBT Families Day. Personal activism such as participating in this and conversing with people who are pro-discrimination is my favorite form of activism because I believe truly changing people’s minds is a powerful and imperative step towards equality.